NHS, a healthy business?

A Healthy Business

Just recently my father was taken ill with quite a serious but treatable condition. Without going into details, he required what the surgeons called a routine operation but was in effect brain surgery. He’s on the road to recovery now, thank goodness.

What I want to write about though, is the wonderful system that
made all this possible; The National Health Service.

On the 5^th of July, 1948, the NHS was born, however, the gestation period was somewhat longer than that of an elephant and there are some that would have you believe that is what it has become, an elephant of the white variety. Don’t you believe a single word of what they are telling you. The NHS is a magnificent organisation delivering a superb service in difficult circumstances.

The idea of a universal health system is to deliver medical care to the people of the country, free from any financial hardship. This is usually achieved by taxation or by some form of compulsory health insurance. So no, it’s not free in the true sense of the word, but in the UK it is free at the point of delivery. But there are those who would have that change.

We are constantly hearing about the crisis in health-care, overspending, mismanagement, failing to meet waiting time criteria, shortage of beds, shortage of doctors, shortage of nurses, cleanliness issues, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. Why is that?  The heart of this jewel we have in the UK is being ripped out piece by piece. I write about murders, and that is what is happening here; a 64 year old is being murdered.

You see, taxation to fund the health service does not produce a profit for shareholders. Shift the health system from a public service to a privatised one

and hey presto, investors can see a return on investment; some people can make a pile of money. So, what you are seeing now is the product of underfunding, maybe with a view to killing off the entire service. Perhaps there are one or two managers too many, I don’t know; what I do know is, from first-hand experience of visiting my father, there are not enough staff for the workload. Agency nurses are a common sight, yet they shouldn’t be. If you are constantly having to employ agency staff, you are under-staffed and wasting money. Why is the NHS understaffed? Because someone, somewhere has deemed it unnecessary to have the correct staffing levels, to save money, yet it seems to be doing the opposite.

The National Health Service was never intended to be a profitable organisation; it was intended to be a service to the people of the country. For once, I would like to see the government, (and here I am not making any party-political points, they have all underfunded the NHS for many years) inject sufficient funds to get the health service back on its feet.

The NHS staff, doctors, nurses, porters etc., are doing an excellent job under terrible conditions. They deserve our full support and they deserve the recognition and pay appropriate for the work they do.

Get to it government and do the job for which you were elected, running the country, and I don’t mean into the ground as you are now, but running it for the people.

#NHS #Author